Out of Our Comfort Zones: Reflections about Teaching Qualitative Research at a Distance

Abstract

How does an increase in distance technology alter the teaching of qualitative research? This article uses a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (McKinney, 2007) framework in which each author collected data in the form of personal narrative essays about teaching qualitative research from a distance, course products, teaching evaluations, and student comments. Individually we created a narrative reflection on the teaching and learning of qualitative methodology; particularly comparing our individual experiences with both distance and in-person teaching formats. Through these reflective essays, we provide ideas about our teaching of qualitative research via distance technology as a conceptual conversation about the nature of teaching qualitative research in non-face-to-face settings within schools of education. Looking across the essays we found that teaching qualitative methodology is rooted in relational ideas that may be difficult in a distance setting. We each individually struggled with the loss of time for learning new technology or traveling over a distance, which may have compromised the integrity of our other faculty job requirements. One common recommendation was that there be some level of face-to-face interaction, even over distance technologies, as a way to facilitate relational concepts in qualitative teaching.